At deep mid-wicket I can see a face like a gargoyle  but wings like an angel

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BUT WE MUST also protect the sinister, the menacing, the birds of ill-omen. Save the vultures, I say: and, since I am writing these words at a cricket ground in India, save the shite-hawks as well. Not that they need much saving: constantly crossing the ground on languid, grubby wings. They are survivors. Mind you, you can say that about anything and be wrong.

Vultures, for example. Until 15 years ago, there were 40 million vultures in India. The numbers have crashed, a 97 per cent decline. A catastrophe for an unloved bird: face like a gargoyle, wings like an